Sobering Setback

India's space ambitions suffered an unexpected blow on Sunday morning when the PSLV-C61 mission, carrying the Earth Observation Satellite EOS-09, failed to achieve orbit due to an anomaly in the third stage of the rocket.

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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which has enjoyed an enviable success rate with its trusted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), confirmed that while the first and second stages of the vehicle performed as expected, a sudden drop in chamber pressure in the solid-fuelled third stage led to the mission's failure.

Notably, this is only the third unsuccessful PSLV mission in over three decades.

The failure of the mission in discussion assumes considerable significance because EOS-09 was viewed as a potential strategic asset, which was designed with advanced synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology to deliver real-time, all-weather, day-night imagery critical to India's surveillance, environmental monitoring, and disaster response capabilities.

Its failure to reach orbit is, therefore, as much a strategic setback as it is a scientific one.

The EOS-09 mission was part of a broader constellation of Earth observation satellites aimed at enhancing national capabilities in agriculture, forestry, soil moisture mapping, and especially in border surveillance.